Compare methods

	God Image Measurement	Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS)
Field	Religious Studies	Religious Studies
Family	Latent structure	Latent structure
Year of origin	1973	2012
Originator	Peter Benson & Bernard Spilka	Stefan Huber & Odilo W. Huber
Type	Multidimensional latent measure of God representation	Second-order latent measure of religious centrality
Seminal source	Benson, P., & Spilka, B. (1973). God image as a function of self-esteem and locus of control. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 12(3), 297-310.	Huber, S., & Huber, O. W. (2012). The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS). Religions, 3(3), 710-724.
Aliases	God Image Inventory, God Concept Measurement, God Representation Scale, Loving-Controlling God Image	Huber CRS, Centrality of Religiosity Scale, Religiosity Centrality Measure, CRS-15 / CRS-10 / CRS-7
Related	3	3
Summary	God image measurement quantifies the emotional, relational picture a believer holds of God — not the doctrines they affirm, but how they experience the divine as, say, loving or wrathful, accepting or rejecting, near or distant, controlling or permissive. Peter Benson and Bernard Spilka's 1973 study established the empirical approach: they measured the God image along evaluative dimensions and showed that it is systematically tied to the self, with people higher in self-esteem and internal locus of control picturing a more loving and accepting God. The tradition distinguishes the God image (the affect-laden, experienced representation) from the God concept (the formally professed theological description) and measures the former as a multidimensional latent construct from ratings of attributed divine characteristics.	The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS), developed by Stefan Huber and Odilo Huber and consolidated in their 2012 paper, measures how central the religious meaning system is within an individual's personality. It operationalizes five core dimensions drawn from the Glock-Stark tradition — intellect, ideology, public practice, private practice, and religious experience — and treats them as indicators of a single higher-order construct, the centrality of religiosity. The CRS comes in interchangeable 15-, 10-, and 7-item versions, yields both dimension scores and an overall centrality score, and supports a simple three-level classification of respondents as not religious, religious, or highly religious. Designed for cross-cultural and interreligious use, it has become one of the most widely applied general religiosity measures in contemporary survey research.